


Miscommunication Celebration

by SleepySsnail



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Artist Keith (Voltron), Birthday, Birthday Cake, Birthday Party, Fluff, Food, Gen, Happy Birthday Keith (Voltron), Happy Ending, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Keithtober 2019, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pancakes, Party, Quality Time, Socially Awkward Keith (Voltron), video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 23:09:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21144761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepySsnail/pseuds/SleepySsnail
Summary: Keith was never too focused on his birthday, but when it rolls around he hopes his team remembers it. When Keith's birthday is full of quality time and fun, he doesn't even question why his friends haven't said "happy birthday" to him.Or: Where Keith thinks everyone is celebrating his birthday when they really forgot about it.Keithtober 2019 Day 23: Birthday





	Miscommunication Celebration

**Author's Note:**

> Keith's birthday is finally here!! I've been so excited to participate in Keithtober this month and had so much fun writing this!

Keith never considered himself to be big on birthdays. It was nice to be invited to play games and get a slice of free cake, but for himself Keith didn’t like the idea of parties or gifts. So when everyone started celebrating their birthdays in space, it was a bit intimidating for Keith to imagine what everyone would do.

Hunk’s birthday was the first one they actually celebrated in space, but since then everyone jumped on the bandwagon to have a day about themselves. Hunk had everyone play spin-off game of Master Chef, Pidge raided the space mall for earth videogames and held a tournament, while Shiro just wanted a couple days to relax and play the tabletop monsters and mana game Coran introduced.

Lance made sure to milk his birthday every second he could, convincing Pidge and Coran to upgrade the castle with a siren of his voice while he played with Keith and Allura’s hair just because he could. Even the alteans jumped on board with the celebration. It was surprising to find that alteans didn’t celebrate birthdays, but they did have an annual gift-giving day where they exchanged presents and sweets with their loved ones.

But Keith hadn’t mentioned his birthday to anyone when Allura was planning them out on the calendar. When everyone was putting their birthdates into the calendar, Keith hadn’t had a chance to put his in before a sudden galra attack diverted everyone’s attention. By the time voltron defeated the threat, the calendar had been put away and the birthday topic had been forgotten in favor of an hour on the training deck while the adrenaline was still pumping.

But it wasn’t a big deal. Keith had told Shiro when his birthday was and they had even celebrated it once in the garrison before the kerberos mission took off. But if knowing Shiro for a few years had taught him something, Keith was sure the black paladin would go back and add the missing birthday to the list.

Truth be told, the only thing Keith really wanted was to be told “happy birthday” by at least one person. That was all.

He didn’t need a party, gifts, or even a cake. Keith just wanted his friends to acknowledge him and to go through the day like he normally would.

* * *

“Hi Keith!” Hunk said brightly, waving his mixing spoon, “Morning!”

“Hey Hunk,” Keith said, making his way to the fridge.

As far as birthdays went, this one was going pretty well. For the first time in a while, Keith actually slept in and didn’t feel bad about not hitting the training deck first thing. According to the others, today was supposed to be his day, and Keith was going to enjoy it. True, he wasn’t as outlandish as Lance with all his demands or Shiro with how he dropped everything to just nap, but Keith was more conservative with what he wanted.

“I made pancakes! You want some?” Hunk asked, turning his attention to the stovetop that had a couple of hot pans on it.

Smiling at the gesture, Keith nodded and said, “Yeah. I’d like that.”

“Great!” Hunk said, abandoning what he was working on to grab the pancake batter. “Do you want anything in it? I’ve got these purple chocolate chips, pinkberries which are kinda like blueberries but pinker, some nuts, anything you want buddy!”

Looking at the selection, Keith felt almost timid as he asked, “Can I have some of each?”

“Of course!” Hunk said, already beginning to make up the food, “The altean honey syrup and jam is in the pantry if you want any.”

Nodding, Keith grabbed the toppings before pausing to look at what Hunk had been making before he came in. Aside from cooking meals and trying to make different alien cuisine work, Hunk had started baking some good desserts after an alliance with a planet led to them sharing some of their culinary texts. Whatever Hunk was making, it smelled sweet and familiar despite being a strange shade of blue.

“What’re you doing over here?” Keith asked, picking up one of the bottles that resembled vanilla extract.

Looking up from the pancakes, Hunk moved to Keith’s side before saying, “I was working on a cookie cake recipe. I’m not sure if the dough is sweet enough or if I should add an extra teaspoon of salt.”

“Whatever you do, it’ll be awesome,” Keith said, meaning every word of it.

Returning to the pancakes, Hunk and Keith maintained a peaceful silence as the sizzle of the food and the sweet baked smell filled the kitchen.

“Here you go,” Hunk said with a gentle smile, placing the plate of pancakes in front of Keith, “Lemme know what you think.”

Nodding, Keith found himself already digging into the food, excited for whatever Hunk prepared. Without realizing it, Keith had made it through most of his plate before noticing Hunk was standing nearby as if waiting for a reaction.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Keith breathed a small laugh before saying, “Hunk that’s amazing.”

The beaming smile from Hunk was all Keith needed to feel even happier. He hadn’t expected birthday pancakes, but Hunk was too amazing and was being so nice about it.

“Thank you,” Keith said slowly, trying to think about his words before he said them, “For breakfast. I really appreciate it.”

Pulling Keith into a side hug, Hunk smiled and said, “Don’t worry about it. I wanted to.”

Relaxing into the gentle hug, Keith couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face.

“Hey,” Hunk said, pulling out of the hug, “You wanna help me finish the baking? I need a taste tester.”

As much as Keith wished the hug had lasted a little longer, the thought of helping Hunk bake something was something unexpected. Lance had claimed the title of being the official taste tester and Hunk almost never asked anyone else to help him cook.

“I’d like that,” Keith said, not bothering to suppress the excitement in his voice.

* * *

Out of all the paladins, Lance was the one who Keith didn’t get along with best. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, but between their so-called “rivalry” and how easy it was to tease each other, Keith was almost sure Lance held some kind of animosity towards him.

Either that feeling was wearing away and their relationship was getting better, or Lance had put all that on hold for Keith’s birthday.

“Keith, my buddy, my man,” Lance said, his arm thrown over Keith’s shoulders as they walked down the hall, “What can I do for you?”

The question took Keith off guard. He wasn’t expecting Lance to even want to celebrate his birthday, let alone ask what he wanted to do.

Shrugging at Lance’s question, Keith said, “I dunno. The training deck’s down for repairs.”

“Dude, stop thinking about training,” Lance groaned, jostling Keith a bit, “We’ve got those board games! Or we could draw! I bet I could draw you better than you can do me.”

Now that was something Keith could get behind. He loved drawing and art, even if he wasn’t the best out of the artists he had seen it was fun to make things just for himself.

“What’re we betting?” Keith asked, squirming out from under Lance’s arm.

Grinning, Lance let out a small laugh before suggesting, “Time? If you win, you get twenty minutes of my time. If I win, I get twenty minutes of your time.”

“To do whatever we want?” Keith asked, thinking of what he could do with Lance that they’d both like.

“Anything!” Lance said, grabbing Keith’s wrist to pull him into the lounge.

When they actually sat down and started to draw, Keith found himself having more fun than he did when he was alone. Having Lance joke and talk with him was fun and Keith couldn’t remember smiling this much around the blue paladin.

“Okay!” Lance exclaimed, putting down his pen, “I’m finished!”

Looking at his own altean art pad, Keith was unsatisfied with what he had accomplished. His sketch was still messy and he hadn’t gone as fast as usual because he had been talking with Lance, but it wasn’t something he was ashamed of.

“I guess I’m done for now.”

“Look at mine first!” Lance said, shoving his art pad into Keith’s hands.

Taking a moment to look at the drawing, Keith couldn’t help but let a laugh bubble out of him. The drawing was childish and cartoony with an arrow pointing to the character’s head with the word “mullet” titling the piece. It was funny and made Keith smile as his laughter died down.

“I did amazing,” Lance said proudly as he crossed his arms, “I win all the drawing contests against my siblings.”

“I’d hate to see what they’d come up with,” Keith snickered, handing the art pad back.

“Oh, they’re terrible,” Lance said with a grin, “Your turn. I wanna see how badly you drew the amazing Lance.”

A slight nervousness formed in Keith’s gut as he handed his pad over to Lance, waiting for some kind of teasing over the sketch. It made sense that Lance would associate his dark and brooding nature with a hidden artistic talent, but Keith was more concerned about sharing his art. The only other person he ever really drew for had been Shiro, and even then it as just doodles on sticky notes.

“I’m not used to the brushes yet,” Keith said, waiting for Lance’s comments, “And I know it kinda looks like a–”

“You made me into an anime character!” Lance yelled, looking up from the pad with a wild smile.

Narrowing his eyes at the comment, Keith quickly felt the urge to defend himself as he asked, “Is that bad?”

“No man this is awesome!” Lance said, running his hand through his hair while he looked at the drawing, “You missed my freckles, but I love this! You win hands down.”

“I didn’t get to the details yet,” Keith argued, reaching out to grab the pad, “I’ll finish it later.”

“Nuh-uh,” Lance said, jumping up to hold the pad out of Keith’s reach, “I wanna print of this before you finish! I like it!”

“Lance!” Keith said quickly, a hint of amusement in his tone as he rose to his feet, “Give it back!”

“Later,” Lance said, tossing the device on one of the lounge sofas, “But first your prize. Twenty minutes of my time, spent however you want.”

“You were serious?” Keith asked, slightly confused.

He was almost sure Lance had been joking about the bet. Maybe because it was his birthday, Lance was letting Keith actually get something he wanted.”

“Duh,” Lance said, “What do we do next? It’s a while until lunch so we could hang out or relax.”

“Would you back out if I said we were going to spar?” Keithteased, a smirk plain on his face.

Groaning Lance’s shoulders slumped before saying, “If you want. I’ve been meaning to ask you about how to use close-range knives, but–”

“I was kidding,” Keith said as he sat back down, “Training deck’s down. Remember?”

A flicker of realization passed over Lance’s features before he shook his head in disbelief, “Keith you sneak.”

“Let’s do something you want,” Keith said, rocking back and forth on his seat, “It’ll be fun.”

Smiling, Lance began to talk about a game he found while he shrugged out of his jacket, waving his hands excitedly as he spoke.

* * *

“Keith!”

Looking up from his art pad at Pidge as she ran in, Keith raised an eyebrow. It was rare for Pidge to seek him out, even on special occasions.

“What’s up?” Keith asked, saving his file and turning off the pad.

After talking with Lance and playing a few games, Keith had effectively stolen the other boy’s jacket. It had been a joke, something to try and get Lance riled up to wrestle, but all he had done was shrug and say Keith could keep it for the day. The only catch was that Keith had to show Lance the finished version of his drawing from earlier. Even lunch had been amazing, with Hunk giving him a small smile and a wink when he talked about the cookie cake he made for after dinner.

“You’re good at DDR, right?” Pidge asked, grabbing Keith’s, the lights glinting off her glasses.

“I guess,” Keith said with a shrug, “Why?”

“I finally got it set up!” Pidge said quickly, pulling Keith towards her room, “C’mon!”

Letting himself be pulled along, Keith wondered why Pidge chose him to share this with. He liked videogames well enough and was good at them, but Keith had never been the first one Pidge looked for when playing a new game. It was nice that she was doing this for him.

“See,” Pidge said as she kicked a few clothes out of the way, “I got them at the space mall a week ago! It was a surprise.”

Just as Pidge predicted, two hard dance pads were on the floor in front of one of the altean screens she had hijacked for her own use.

“So what songs do you wanna do?” Pidge asked as she stepped onto one of the square mats, “Cuz I’m gonna lose at this easily.”

“Seriously?” Keith asked, shrugging out of his borrowed jacket to tie it around his waist, “I thought you were the ‘game master.’”

A small flush crept across Pidge’s cheeks at the name she gave herself. Smirking at the reaction, Keith stepped onto his own mat and listened as Pidge stammered out a response.

“That was a joke–just a joke–and I am the best at–”

“Chill out,” Keith said as he flipped through the song choices, “I’m messing with you.”

Opening her mouth to say something, Pidge shook her head before muttering, “Jerk.”

“Shortie.”

“Shut up and dance,” Pidge said a smile on her still pink face.

* * *

Out of all his birthdays, Keith’s favorite had been the last one he celebrated with Shiro.

It was before the kerberos mission, and Keith had mentioned that he didn’t know why so many people liked having huge parties. That of course, prompted Shiro into pestering Keith about when his birthday was before accessing the garrison database to find out for himself.

On his actual birthday, after classes and simulations ended, Shiro had met Keith on the roof with a few cupcakes. It was a nice gesture, and the comical way Shiro sang happy birthday make Keith laugh and feel happy. After they finished their cupcakes, the two went out to ride their hoverbikes as a birthday present.

That had been Keith’s favorite birthday celebration. But today had easily taken its place as the best birthday.

Playing videogames with Pidge had been fun and exhausting. True to her word, Pidge struggled with dance dance revolution but excelled in every other game they played. It was fun and endearing considering Pidge could’ve done anything else, but she had decided to do something Keith liked.

But it just got even better.

Getting attention from Shiro wasn’t bad, but it was hard to try and do things with him since he was the leader. It made sense that the leader of voltron had more responsibilities than the rest of the paladins, but for Shiro to put that all aside to just sit down and talk with Keith was one of the best things that happened today.

“You alright Keith?” Shiro asked in a concerned tone, “You’ve been zoning out for a while.”

“I’m fine,” Keith said, leaning back against the couch he was on, “I’m just…really having a good day.”

“Really?” Shiro asked, a brief flicker of hope appearing in his eyes, “That’s great.”

Nodding, Keith relaxed as Shiro resumed his conversation, talking about his favorite moments from the garrison. It was small, kind, and just what Keith wanted. In Keith’s mind, quality time trumped gifts any day of the week, even in space weeks.

* * *

“If you’d like,” Allura said as she flicked through the star maps, “I could show you how to use an altean staff when the training deck is repaired.”

“You’d do that?” Keith asked, not expecting the offer.

Keith had expected everyone to get busy before dinner and had made his way to the bridge to do some work of his own, only to find Allura and Coran going through the interactive star charts. It hadn’t taken long for them to begin discussing the different planets they had visited, weaponry, and the cultures they encountered.

Smiling softly, Allura tucked some of her hair behind her ear while saying, “Of course. Knowing how to defend yourself without your bayard is essential, and I’d love to share my planet’s cultures with you. If you don’t mind, of course.”

“No, that’d be cool,” Keith said, quickly tapping on one of the stars to bring up the information about it. “That’d be really awesome.”

“Oh! That’s the star from the Gelta system!” Coran exclaimed, pushing his way towards the star’s information, “I had a cousin who lived there!”

Shaking his head in amusement as Coran began to tell another one of his stories, Keith paid some attention to the altean’s words while he looked at some of the other planets around them.

* * *

“Keith gets the first piece of cookie cake!” Hunk said with a smile.

Feeling his face get warm, Keith slouched in his seat as Lance whined, “Aww man why?”

Placing a plate with a fresh slice of cookie on it in front of Keith, Hunk nudged his shoulder and said, “What do you think?”

“You’re playing favorites,” Lance continued, his expression brightening as he was served his own cookie.

Ignoring Lance’s usual behavior, Keith dug into the warm slice of cookie while everyone began to talk.

After dinner dessert had become something Keith actually looked forward to. Not just because Hunk made the best sweets ever, but because everyone was there. It was a nice atmosphere to hear Coran share his stories while everyone bonded over something. Moments like these were something Keith thought about more often than he’d admit out loud.

“This is delicious,” Allura said, some of the purple chocolate smeared down her chin, “What is this called again?”

“Cookie cake,” Hunk supplied, already a good way through his own slice, “Keith helped me make it.”

“Seriously?” Lance asked through a mouthful of dessert, “You gotta help out more often. Hunk shows off when someone else helps.”

“I–I do not!” Hunk stammered, giving Lance an incredulous look.

“You totally do,” Pidge smirked.

Waving his fork around, Shiro added “Keith’s presence probably helped make everything come out so good.”

Smiling at being in the conversation, Keith listened as everyone joked around, adding his own thoughts when it was right. By the time everyone was pretty much done with their dessert, Keith was satisfied and comfortable with how his birthday had gone.

“Thank you guys,” Keith said, catching everyone’s attention, “This has been a really good day.”

Instantly Keith was met with smiles from everyone and a quiet murmur filled the dining room. Even if nobody said it to him, it was the best birthday Keith ever had and certainly one he’d remember for years to come.

* * *

The bomb dropped a couple weeks later.

Everyone was in the common area talking and joking about anything other than the galactic war they were in when the subject of birthdays was brought up.

Laughing at a memory from Pidge’s celebration, Lance asked, “Hey Keith, when’s your birthday?”

Blinking at the obvious question, Keith immediately wrote it off as Lance’s forgetfulness before answering, “October 23rd.”

A heavy silence fell over the room upon hearing that and everyone slowly looked from Keith to each other as if they were appalled at what they heard.

“We forgot to celebrate it,” Allura finally breathed.

Despite Her understanding of human birthdays being limited to what the paladins had told her, Allura had understood that to most humans birthdays were a big deal.

“No you didn’t,” Keith said, causing everyone to stare at him again, “Did you guys forget?”

“What’re you talking about?” Pidge asked quietly, her face flushed with what could only be shame.

“You know,” Keith shrugged as he tried to find the right words, “You played video games with me and Lance loaned me his jacket. Hunk let me be the taste tester and even made me pancakes. You guys spent time with me and we had cookie cake.”

The looks he was getting from the others was confusing Keith. Everything had been perfect as far as his birthday went and he couldn’t understand why everyone was blowing this out of proportion.

“I forgot.”

Instantly, all eyes shifted from Keith to Shiro’s guilty expression.

Clenching his prosthetic slowly, Shiro said, “We’ve been so busy and I’ve been so…stressed about everything that I forgot it was your birthday.”

“What?” Keith asked, a pit forming in his stomach.

“Your birthday was never added to the calendar,” Pidge mumbled, her eyes darting back and forth between everyone, “I didn’t know.”

“None of us knew,” Allura said, swallowing hard.

“Oh,” Keith said softly, not sure what to do.

For some reason Keith felt humiliated that he thought a regular day of activities was his birthday. Heat from embarrassment rushed to Keith’s face as he realized how stupid he was. Keith’s immediate instinct was to leave the room to be by himself, but he had slowly learned that storming out wasn’t acceptable or smart in the long run.

“It’s okay,” Keith lied, hoping nobody would notice the disappointment in his voice, “You didn’t know.”

“That’s not an excuse,” Hunk insisted as he fidgeted with his hands, “I’m sorry.

“Seriously guys,” Keith said, forcing a smile, “It’s okay. I don’t do parties or anything so it’s not all your fault. Coran, what were you saying about that bear thing?”

The awkward attempt at changing the topic didn’t go unnoticed, but to Keith’s relief everyone played along. Listening as Coran resumed his story, Keith let his mind wander before returning to how nobody knew it had been his birthday.

Everyone had been nice to him and went out of their way to do things with Keith. Even though they thought it was just a normal day. A light feeling replaced the heavy embarrassment in Keith’s chest the longer he thought about how his friends wanted to be around him, not because they had to.

Smiling to himself as the buzz in the room picked back up, Keith suddenly felt slightly better about the situation than before. Even if they didn’t know it had been his birthday, Keith still thought it was the best one he had yet.

* * *

“We’re terrible friends,” Hunk lamented, his head resting on the table, “We’ve been together for almost a year and we forgot his birthday!”

“I should’ve remembered,” Shiro said like he had countless times already, “I know Keith, I’ve known him the longest and I forgot.”

“Would you guys be quiet?” Lance asked, sparing a glance up from his datapad.

It felt terrible to miss his friend’s birthday, and Lance had never made this kind of mistake before, but he was going to fix it.

“What’re you doing?” Allura asked, leaning over Lance’s shoulder.

“Party agenda,” Lance said bluntly, not looking away from the simple list he had made up.

“Didn’t number three say he didn’t like parties?” Coran asked, hovering behind Shiro.

Shrugging, Lance waved his pen around before saying, “It’s not so much a party agenda as much as it is a…a…um..”

“Idea list?” Pidge suggested, still upset with herself about forgetting.

“Not really but I’ll go with that!” Lance said as he quickly scribbled something else on his pad, “We just gotta make this work!”

“Are you going to explain what you’re doing?” Pidge asked, leaning across the table, “Or is it a big secret?”

Letting out a confident huff of breath at his list, Lance gave a smile this his teammates before saying, “I think it’s time to have Keith’s actual birthday party.”

* * *

“Lance,” Keith said, resisting slightly as the other pushed him towards the kitchen, “What is it you want to show me?”

“Trust me!” Lance laughed as he stopped in front of the kitchen, “You like board games right?”

Raising an eyebrow at the question, Keith nodded and said, “Yeah, but what–”

“Great!” Lance said, letting the sliding doors open before shoving Keith into the kitchen.

Immediately Keith’s vision was obscured by everyone enveloping him in a hug at the same time they yelled “happy birthday.” Keith was almost sure Hunk had started crying, but he was too stunned by what was happening to focus on it.

“What’s happening?” Keith asked, trying to look at someone for an answer, “What’re you guys doing?”

“We’re having an actual party,” Shiro said with a small smile.

Snorting, Pidge pulled out of the group hug before commenting, “You deserve a party where we actually know it’s your birthday.”

“You guys don’t have to,” Keith said as he was slowly released from the embrace, “I’m fine. I’m happy with–”

“No-no-no-no-no,” Lance interrupted, not even phased by Keith’s refusal, “We have cookies in the oven, that tabletop game Coran keeps talking about, and even some of those space milkshakes that don’t make you sick!”

Keith was honestly amazed. He was fine not having an actual celebration for his birthday, but milkshakes and monsters and mana was tempting.

“Why?”

The question seemed simple, but it carried more weight than Keith anticipated.

“Because we care about you,” Allura said gently as she held out a folded piece of paper “And we want to make you happy.”

Slowly taking the paper, Keith opened it to reveal a printed version of Lance’s drawing of him with birthday wishes from everyone written across it. Taking a moment to read the card, Keith savored the warm sensation in his chest at the attention.

“Thank you,” Keith said, his voice soft compared to usual.

“Happy birthday Keith.”

**Author's Note:**

> That's that! I hope you guys enjoyed this and will check me out on my other social media. I'm sleepyssnail at [tumblr](https://sleepyssnail.tumblr.com/) and [instagram!](https://www.instagram.com/sleepyssnail/) Happy keithtober!


End file.
